


Steady

by tous_les_coups



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Human Castiel, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 13:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tous_les_coups/pseuds/tous_les_coups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean stitches Cas up after he gets shot in the shoulder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steady

He has been hurt before, countless times before, and he hasn’t healed but he’s always healed enough, he’s been restored if not renewed. He’s healed his own wounds, and how easy it was to break the skin, dig down to his bones, how easy to shed blood he didn’t need, how easy to break what he could fix.

Tonight he clenches his jaw, he will not whine, he will not, just inhale sharp through his teeth, as Dean ties off the last suture. Black thread, dark cobwebs holding his shoulder together. He can’t tell why Dean’s hands shake, but the stitches are steady.

Cobwebs spread across the fissures of a dying house.

He is new again now. He is new to take the scars of living. Bullet on the table, and tweezers, slick with blood, staining the wood. Whiskey bottle beside them, barely touched, he’s drunk. Doesn’t take much, these days, and doesn’t matter, he doesn’t need to numb, he feels too little, this body is nothing and shadows made flesh, he can feel pain but not the whisper of flowers growing—

“You’re all good,” says Dean, claps him on the other shoulder. The next moment he’s gone, in the motel bathroom, washing out the needles, but Cas still feels his hand on his shoulder.

An echo of trembling, of the hands that keep him together when he can’t keep from falling apart. Not all marks of living are scars.


End file.
